CHINER! Part II

On our third day, we went to the Temple of Heaven. Granted, after seeing the Forbidden City and all the palaces/temples, cool architecture, crazy sea rock gardens, and pretty trees there, the Temple of Heaven itself is just kind of...meh, but I am SO glad we went there on that Saturday, because like I've said before Chinese people are happy! And happy Chinese senior citizens, playing, singing, and dancing in the huge park surrounding the Temple of Heaven on a Saturday makes you VERY happy to watch. We saw old couples practicing the tango, grandmas performing with ribbon dancers, singing choirs of the elderly, it was absolutely amazing to see such pure joy - the joy of a little kid - in the eyes of an older person.

We then went to lunch at this great Chinese restaurant. They even served crickets if you so desired. Apparently they're a real specialty in China. Unfortunately, some food we had had in prior days was getting the best of me, so I wasn't in the best mood at lunch. You can guess how happy I was when this smelly, Asian tourist/business man in a pink button-down wanted to take a picture with Laura and me just because we were Americans.

That night we had an interesting experience for dinner. We asked the concierge for a recommendation for a French place for dinner. He got us a reservation. We arrived to an empty restaurant called Maxim's later that night. Maxim's is, by the way, the name of the catering chain that runs one of our campus canteens. Needless to say, Laura and I were a bit nervous. There were about 10, maybe 12, waiters for just our table, yet only one guy could wait on us because he was the only one who spoke English. Despite the gawdiness and emptiness, the food was quite good (I tried escargot...and liked it!) and there was even a live pianst. After a glass or two of wine, I wanted to make friends with the waiter. I asked him what his name was, but then he ran away! Laura and her parents teased me that I'd scared him away or said something offensive. Luckily, he came back after 15 minutes and told us his name and that he was studying language (English and Spanish) at university. I guess he DID understand when Laura's mom said, "si! por favor!" We all had a tendency to speak Spanish when the locals tried to speak to us in Mandarin since it was the only other language we all sort of knew.

On our last day in Beijing, we went to the Summer Palace, where yet again, apparently the emperor prayed to the gods for good harvests or something and signed important documents. It was a warm, sunny day; perfect for seeing a summer palace. It was a beautiful place and nice to see that the "people" really do use it for recreation - paddlin around on the paddle boats, walking, having picnics, etc. Our particularly favorite/least favorite part was the marble boat. We learned that apparently, Empress Cixi took money from the military to build this silly marble boat that doesn't even float! It just was build on top of a cement platform that juts out into the water, but is connected to the land. Seriously the silliest thing I've ever heard of. Other than that...I had some delicious hot chocolate and flower tea and finally found that blue bracelet (the one I'd talked about in the earlier blog about the "not so ladylike market") for only 20RMB about $3USD (Renminbi IS the same as the yuan as Laura and I recently found out and in case you were wondering, it mean's "people's money").

That night we ate at this local Italian place, Annie's, recommended to us by the hotel. While the food was REALLY good and REALLY cheap, China's REALLY gotta work on service. When we arrived at 7:32PM, they told us that they did not have a table for our 7:30PM reservation because we were late and that now we'd just have to wait. We waited, and waited, and waited...until about 8:05 PM. In all that time, why hadn't they at least offered us drinks or something? Traveling in Asia definitely teaches you to have patience. I then wrote them a little "evaluation" on how I thought they could improve their service. Someday, someday, they'll get it.

The next morning, I was off to Shanghai!